Vulpinian

The Vulpinians were a species of Anthropomorphic canid aliens from the Rolor Nebula possessing the capability of limited shape shifting. They were most notably recognized for their rather liberal sexual attitudes and their capabilities in military endeavors particularly in the field of carrier based small space fighter combat. They were a Federation member species and maintained sovereign territory in the confines of the Rolor nebula. Appearance wise they had three forms: The natural form which was similar to a Were creature similar to a maned wolf, The Vulcine form which appeared most similarly to a kind of wood elf from Terran fantasy settings. and a feral form resembling a canid very much like the Terran Maned wolf.

Basics

The most basic facts about the Vulpinian race were difficult to fully appreciate without having an understanding of the complexities of their language or rather the fact that their language was unable to be verbally represented via traditional Federation means. It was important to note that all proper names of their home, their names, name of their race, terms for their deity, and other things were essentially Federation names for them that the Vulpinians chose to use. Most of these terms they borrowed from Japanese. As such, most Vulpinian Proper nouns for astronomical objects or even for ship names were words in Terran Japanese.

As such, the name of their planet was Inari Prime, and was the second planet in the Inari star system. Compared to Earth’s trip around the sun, their planet’s orbit around its primary star was quite a bit larger but the planet moved at a faster velocity. The planet rotated at a slower speed, though, resulting in an approximately 29 Earth-hour day and 450 Vulpinian day year. This resulted in an approximately 550 Earth-day long Vulpinian year. This was an important thing to know because when most Vulpinians referred to their age they referred to their age in Vulpinian years rather than Terran years.

Despite their long time in isolation, they were quick to adapt to their first contact with the Federation, in year 2357, predating their discovery of warp. This was deemed not a violation of the prime directive due to their preexisting contact with merchants of an unknown alien race (later found out to be the Ferengi) who had been at the time perpetuating a continuing civil war between Inari Prime’s people and the people of its colonies. It was no more than 20 year later that their homeworld became a member planet within the United Federation of Planets.

The name they chose to designate their species was Vulpinian taking a cue from the name of the Catian species existing within the Federation. They chose the term Vulpic for their language. And most Vulpinians who interacted with the Federation tended to use the Federation common trade language as their language. As such they were able to communicate in a way that was readable via universal translators. Many Vulpinians who were merchants at the time of the trades with the Ferengi knew the Ferengi language instead. The vast majority of Vulpinians, however, did not speak any other language than their native language. And as such, much of Vulpinian space was not as well adapted for those from elsewhere.

Their technology level prior to first contact was a pre-warp culture with certain facets of impulse and Starfighter technology that was superior even to the current generation of Federation Shuttlecraft. Many of the fighter pilots of the two opposing sides of Vulpinian military retained their combat positions as part of a unified Vulpinian defense force and post Dominion war and their entrance into the Federation many transferred their service records into careers in the Federations newly formed Tactical-CONN department. Approximately 75 percent of all Vulpinians who began a Federation career via a transfer of military experience to a post within Starfleet were of this department, in fact.

Among Vulpinian citizens that chose to join Starfleet have no particular division bias with just as many perusing Federation civilian careers as military ones.

Physiology

Body Structure and Appearance

Vulpinians were a race unique in their ability to take on multiple physical forms, a process called “shifting.” Most Vulpinians had three forms, their “Natural” form (discussed first), their “Feral” form, and their “Tertiary” form.

The Natural "Vulpinian" form

The natural form of a Vulpinian was that of an anthropomorphic canid, physically resembling a mythological Terran creature called a Were-wolf or, to be more accurate, a Were-fox. Both males and females were very similar aside from sexual organs and secondary sexual traits.

Height and weight were very similar among males and females with the female being slightly taller on average and the male having slightly broader shoulders and slightly shorter and less steeply sloping muzzles. Compared to the human male, both sexes were on average slightly shorter. At ideal health a Vulpinian had an athletic, gymnastically inclined, build with a toned musculature.

Vulpinian fur color varied among nearly every fur color seen in canines on Earth and as such there were racial differences among Vulpinians from different regions, though there were primarily three key races and in the earth language they were named for a Terran canine the fur color resembles. The Artie were named for the arctic fox though they show a lot of similarities in color to many mostly white kinds of wolf. Most notably different among their race were their short, rounded ears resembling those of an arctic fox. As it sounds, this race had mostly white to silvery white fur with the darkest spots often being near the tails ears and muzzle. The Labras were named for the Black Labrador due to their fur color often being a dark black to charcoal gray color. They resembled a black wolf in their fur length and features. The Fen were a Light tan race named for their similarity to the fennec fox’s color tone and their tendency to have unusually large ears for the species.

Most Vulpinians did not exhibit the traits of one race only and were a mix of all three, though among certain noble families there were tendencies to selectively continue the bloodlines of their parent race. Examples of common sub races of Vulpinians included the “Red”, the “Timber”, and the “Blue” named for red foxes, timber wolves, and the blue merle coat pattern in domesticated canines. As an example: Miles Renard was most likely a mix of the Red and Timber sub-races.

Vulpinians in their natural form had sharp fingernails much like claws and their teeth were those of a species that appeared to eat a highly, almost exclusively, carnivorous diet. One of the most prominent features of the Vulpinian was their tail which in their natural form was prehensile in nature and capable of being used similarly to an extra limb with roughly half the strength of an arm. In addition the tail served as a structure tied to their sense of balance.

Gender Specifics

Females of the species are often considered lithe bodied by human female standards and had three rows of breasts. The largest pair at the top and decreasing in size as they went down the lowest set at the abdomen.

On average, the first set of breasts was smaller than a human female's averaging a larger A cup or a smaller B cup size. The second was smaller and was a rather flat A-cup and the third was extremely flat and was more just a set of nipples, one on each side of the belly button with little to no breast tissue around them.

During late pregnancy and childbirth, the female underwent an extreme sexual change in terms of breast size when she began to make milk and lactate. On average, the primary breasts swelled to a very voluptuous set of C cups, the middle row to perky and full B's, and the final to a rather average sized set of A cups. This was due to a combination of swelling of the mammary glands for the production of milk and the milk itself that began to fill said breasts.

As far as the rest of the male body was concerned, the males had an almost feminine shape compared to human males and many male Vulpinians were confused for females of the race due to the similarities among the two genders and both genders looking somewhat like androgynous females. Like females, males had nipples though they had no breast tissue at all. As they grew, all but the first row of nipples tended to atrophy to a point where at best the lower two rows of nipples appeared to be small moles at the most under their fur.

Sexual Organ Traits

In the natural form, the female sexual organs were canine in nature but similar to a human's, containing a similar structure internally. Differently from humans, though, female Vulpinians had a more easily dilated cervix allowing for cervical penetration during sex. The only times that the cervix did not easily dilate for sex was at times when the female was currently pregnant (as a means of protecting the fetus) or if the female was not consenting as the cervical dilation was typical side effect of sexual pleasure. There were rare exceptions such as if a female was strongly acting in a non-consenting role in extreme forms of sexual play. This kind of play was very rare and since rape was such a serious crime fetishism of even roleplaying nonconsensual sex was punishable as a nonviolent felony in some more conservatively political regions.

Part of the reason for cervical penetration being so common was due to the average length and girth of the male’s sexual organ. Like most canine creatures, the foreskin existed as a form of sheath around the male organ. When sheathed, the length was about average for male humans at a semi-flaccid state and as such male Vulpinians were stereotyped as constantly horny due to their natural form tending to have a bulge, looking similar to a male human experiencing an erection in public. When erect, on average a Vulpinian had a penis averaging over a foot in length with a proportionally wide girth. The shape and form was similar to that of an earth canine and at its base had a large knot often around the size of a tennis ball. Vulpinian testicles were of above average size compared to a human's.

The "Feral" Form

All Vulpinians learned at an early age to transform into a form similar to the canid native to their planet that it was believed they evolved from. This canid creature was most similar to the Terran canine called the Maned wolf. Fur color of the feral form was similar to the fur colors exhibited in their “Natural” form.

In this form, a Vulpinian had access to their fastest movement speeds and psychologically they took on a more instinctive and impulsive demeanor. Combat in this form was limited to whatever kinds of combat one could expect a canine creature to be capable of. However, since the feral form had access to the most strength and speed, this form could be extremely deadly due to the Vulpinian retaining all sentient knowledge of their bipedal forms even when in this form and most trained in forms of martial combat that utilized this form in tandem to their natural form.

The "Tertiary" forms

Nearly every Vulpinian took on a “Tertiary” form upon their earliest stages of adulthood and choosing this form was part of most Vulpinians’ rites of adulthood. There were multiple kinds of Tertiary forms, though the most common Tertiary form was known in the Terran language as the Vulcine form. The reason for this name was its slight resemblance to the Federation Species known as Vulcans.

The "Vulcine" Form

The most notable change to the body in the Vulcine form was the loss of all fur, which receded into the skin during the change. If there was moisture on the fur, the process squeezed any liquid off the surface. This was aided by the slightly hydrophobic nature of the oils present on the surface of Vulpinian fur. Due to the recession of hair in the Vulcine form most Vulpinians in this form were usually bald. Over time, the Vulpinian could learn where to stop the hair recession to take on the appearance of human like hair growth. This could extend to body hair and pubic hair. Most, however, preferred to either stay fully bald in this form or only retain hair on the head and rarely had any form of facial, body, or pubic hair.

During the change, the muzzle receded and the facial and leg bones rearranged to take on a very humanoid-like appearance and structure. Other notable changes were the shift of the feet from a digitigrade structure to a plantigrade structure, the slight recession of the claw structures of the hands into prominent fingernails, and the teeth becoming a mildly omnivorous in shape, though still noticeably fanged especially regarding the canine teeth. The tail was fully retained in this form, though its abilities were heavily diminished and often the tail hung loose as it took much more effort to move tail muscles manually in this form. The eyes of a Vulpinian when taking this form were unchanged as their eyes remained the same no matter what form they took. The ears in this form were the reason some compared this form to a Vulcan due to the pointed shape. Unlike a Vulcans ears, the pointed shape of a Vulpinian’s ears was much more pronounced and tended to resemble a non-furred, slightly moved, and a bit smaller version of the canine ears they had before, some tended to point out that the ears were more accurately compared to some form of wood elf from Terran Fantasy. However, to Humans in the Federation, pointed ears usually invoked comparisons to Vulcan ears so the name Vulcine for this form stuck.

Gender Specifics

Females in the Vulcine form retained multiple rows of breasts though the bottom row was nearly nonexistent, the second row was very small, and the primary row was noticeably larger than in their natural form. Averaging a similar bust size to a human female. In the Vulcine form, they retained all six nipples usually. Some became good enough at shifting to make the second and third row of nipples disappear altogether in this form.

Males in the Vulcine form took upon a male human looking chest and the additional rows of nipples disappeared completely in this form.

Sexual Organ Traits

Females in the Vulcine form’s internal sexual organs changed very little. The ability of their cervix to be flexible and dilate was diminished greatly, and though cervical penetration was still possible it was often painful in this form. The male organ, when in the Vulcine form, lost some size and resembled either a circumcised or non-circumcised (based on the male Vulpinian’s preference) Human Penis and was roughly 3/4ths the total length of his natural form and lacked the knot of their natural form.

Alternatives to the Vulcine form

As mentioned, there were alternatives to the “Vulcine” Tertiary form. The most common alternative was the ability to take on the appearance of the opposite gender of the Vulpinian species's natural form. When one chose a second gender as their Tertiary form, their non-original gender was sterile as far as becoming impregnated by or impregnating members of their natural gender. Sometimes this gender transformation could be further mastered to the point of being able to take on a form of features borrowed from both genders at once or being able to transform between genders with a very fluid ease.

Others opted to focus on not taking a third form and became much more adept at the speed and ease of transforming back and forth from Feral to Natural form.

Ageing and Life Span

The second most prominent feature of the Vulpinian race was their rather unique ageing process and how their society viewed different phases of life. ((see culture and customs)) Instead of a strict view of one’s specific age defending what stage of life a person was in, culture dictated the stage a Vulpinian was in within their life. These stages were referred to as Kit (child), Adult, Matriarch, and Elder. The advancement from one age group to the next was usually based on either a ritual (such as kit to adult) or their ageing process naturally changing. Such as with Adult to Matriarch and Matriarch to Elder.

The average Life span of a Vulpinian was between 250 and 550 Human years. Kits became adults through a rite of adulthood ceremony that culminated in receiving a legal document that entitled one to the privileges rights and responsibilities of adulthood. This ceremony was undertaken when the child felt they were ready to be declared legally an adult so the age that a newly declared adult appeared varied between as young as recently hitting puberty and as old as a young adult by human standards. Age of consent laws with Vulpinians were such that the age of consent was not a specific age but was tied to being declared an adult. Vulpinians aged roughly at half the rate of humans until they reached the "matriarch” stage of life at about 85 human years and usually appeared in their mid-40’s. It was at this stage that most settled down to have children. The matriarch stage, patriarch for males, was the most long lived stage of the Vulpinian life and ageing slowed to a literal crawl for between 135 and 410 years, ageing from early middle age, by human standards 40 to 45 and early retirement age like 55. Matriarchs and Patriarchs were also called arches for short. About midway through this stage, females went through the equivalent to human menopause and became infertile often resulting in an increase in their libido. Given the slight graying of fur during the Arch-years this period of increased female sexuality was known as the "Silver-heat". Often times they would seek out younger males as semi frequent partners similar to the human concept of a male going through a midlife crisis and trying to "score a trophy wife." It was the one time in Vulpinian culture that a member of the race being solely heterosexual was in any way common. For some reason, at that age, most females lost interest in other females for a time. After that stage in life Vulpinians aged at a rate very similar to human aging and were classified as Elders. Most Vulpinians retired upon being declared an elder, though it was far from a forced retirement. The retirement was more a pseudo-retirement where they were taken care of by the state and revered as masters in their fields of work. When nearing death, Vulpinians often viewed death itself not as an enemy to flee but as a guide to take them to the next stage of existence.

Psychology

Vulpinians often weighed logical reasoning before making a pure instinctual choice but would usually prefer their "gut" over logic, and often could explain the pros and cons of nearly any reasoned decision they made. Vulpinians were also a spiritual people but not very religious. They typically embraced learning about other cultures' religions and spiritual beliefs and often assimilated these concepts into their own spiritual philosophies. Most Vulpinians shared a common love of comparative theology and History of religions and philosophies. Furthermore, Vulpinians loved competition whether in the form of sports, or hunting prey. Most Vulpinian conflicts were settled by duels between the disagreeing parties. Rarely were these duels fatal and in many cases they utilized duels of some form of game, riddle, or puzzle competition.

When it came to war Vulpinians had an interesting philosophy that required a certain understanding of the Vulpinian civil war that waged for a long time before they were discovered by the Federation. (More on this in History) Regarding psychology relating to war though there was a mutual respect on both sides of the war for each other, the war was less viewed as a purpose to conquer and more as a potentially deadly competition between the home planet and the colonies.

A Vulpinian who chose to join the military often joined the military of their birth place. Crossing factions was not unheard of nor was there a stigma attached to it. Secondly, there was little to no hatred between either side of the war for the other and many weapons were designed to cripple the technology of the other side rather than kill the soldiers. Surrendering to a superior force was viewed as not disrespectful and was considered a wise decision if facing overwhelming odds. Upon surrender or capture a soldier was expected to join the side of the fight who captured them. As such there was a greater incentive to capture soldiers alive than kill them in combat. Among soldiers who had retired the average had to switch sides at least five times during one’s career. Secondly Civilian targets were off limits to both sides and both sides agreed to make sure that any civilian in a military related field knew the risks and that their place of work was considered a military target and that those places of work were located within militarized zones rather than civilian zones. As such, those civilians received compensation in the form of hazard pay for the risk. Above all else, war was viewed less as kill the enemy and more as a competition to prove whether the colonies or the home world were more worthy to lead the Vulpinian people.

Language

There were two prevelant languages used by the Vulpinian race both which were learned as part of single lingual system. This bilingual system was called Vulpic by the Federation. The first half of the vulpic language was True Vulpic which was the older of the two. It was the language natural to the Vulpinians and was a language able to be used by a member of the Vulpinian race in any of their three forms. It consisted of canid vocalizations, body and facial gestures that ran the gambit from subtle to major, and pheromone signals. As such, the language had no literal full translation into a human spoken Federation language though approximations could be made.

As such, words in the language consisted of three parts at varying intervals and inflections. But the language could be divided into three root parts. Vocal, Gestural, and Pheromonal

The vocal portion of the language was limited to different basic vocalizations such as bark, baye, howl, woof, yip, etc. These sounds could vary from person to persons and different regions had different accents. These tended to represent what humans would view as the consonant sounds of the language.

The gestural portion of the language consisted of five basic gesture types, denoting what part of the body the gesture was made with. Postural, Eye/Facial, Tail, Hair/mane, and Ear gestures were subtyped into gestural forms called Downwards, Upwards, Forwards, and Backwards. In addition, there were tilted forms which were viewed as combining characteristics of said forms into a meaning between the two. Such as a both forwards and upwards. Slightly forwards typically was same as forwards but in a "quieter" way These gestures seemed to more similar to vowels in nature.

Finally, the Pheromone portion of the language consisted of approximately three different pheromones and served to convey tone and inflection rather than the word said itself. And different mixtures of the pheromones could mean different things, from happiness and eagerness with one combination while a similar combination with one slightly more than the other could have been non-genuine happiness or sarcastic happiness. Essentially, the pheromone or pheromone combination could mean the difference between “OH YAY!!! *jumping around excitedly*” And “Oh, yay… *rolls eyes*“

The second language was developed by the race when they began developing technology that required communication over a audio only medium. As such it was refereed to as Phonetic Vulpic since it was a solely verbal language. Phonetic Vulpic often sounded like a more complex but humanized version of the verbal part of True Vulpic. Phonetic Vulpic essentially phoneticized True Vulpic and was also developed into the modern written Vulpic, the written form of true Vulpic having disappeared long ago. As described earlier, Canine-like vocalizations were turned into what amounted to consonant clusters in the English language. A ruff sound being turned into a rudimentary rf consonant sound. The various gestures thus become the vowel sounds of this language (4 types of gestures while pheromonal signals become the differing tones of voice that would be written as punctuation and may not as clearly come across in an English style written form. (Like how sarcasm is hard to convey in direct quotation though it could be conveyed easily vocally.)

The Vulpinian written language consisted of different symbols. 20 symbols (looking more angular in nature) for the different vocalizations. 5 symbols that were notably curved for the gestures. Gesture symbols were marked with an angle coming off the tip bottom, front or back (or at an angle), to indicate the gesture's form. Two or more gestures together were indicated by pairs of these characters in the same word. Various punctuations and accent marks tended to denote pheromone signals.

Most words in the written language consisted of two symbols, one vocal, one (or more) gestural, creating a word that could be pronounced in a human sounding way. The way words were strung together and sentences were punctuated was the written way of conveying pheromonal signals.

The vulpinian written language could be written in two forms, native which utilized vulpinian characters and punctuation and in Romanized form, which utilized the Federation's character and punctuation set to phonetically represent said words as closely as possible.

Most Vulpinians were at least Triingual with their second language being the common Ferengi trade language because their trade with Ferengi merchants going back long before their first encounter with the Federation. Recently, the secondary language that became most prevalent was the Federation common dialect (Preformed on screen as Terran English). While True Vulpinian was unable to be translated via universal translator, Phonetic vulpinian was able to be translated by the average universal translator and most Vulpinians spoke in it when conversing with members of the Federation. Most Vulpinians who regularly interacted with people part of the Federation preferred to learn the native language of those they worked with. Federation liaisons and ship crews learning Federation Basic, Ambassadorial roles with foreign planets learning that planets native language, etc...

Most Vulpinian terms and proper names were unable to be said by those outside the race and, as a result, many Vulpinians went by a home name and an outsider name of their choice. Federation designations for the Race’s home planet, solar system, the nebula they are within, and even the name of the race were chosen through many polls of suggestions from the youth of the planet with the guideline being they must be in a Federation language. A common theme became words dealing with the Terran Fox and mythology surrounding the Kitsune creature of Japanese mythology.

Home World

The Inari System and the Rolor Nebula constituted what was defined as Vulpinian Territory

The Inari system was composed of one star, one Brown Dwarf type pseudo-stellar object (considered the fourth “planet”), three Inner planets of terrestrial type, two medium gas giants, one small gas giant, and an outer belt of comets asteroids and Dwarf planets similar to Sol’s Kuiper belt.

At this point, it should be noted that when it comes to the politics as they existed on Inari prime, different groups of colonies had different nations of sorts. There were five nations. The two continents of Inari were their own nations. The Inner Colonies were all colonies that existed within the orbit of Inari between Inari itself and the Brown dwarf. The colonies in orbit around the brown dwarf were their own nation, and the colonies outside the orbit of the brown dwarf were their own nation called the outer colonies. There were discussions that colonies outside the Inari system should have been designated as their own nation but as it stood, they were considered loosely confederated city states that were represented within the outer colonies group.

The star Inari was an A0 type Main sequence star, bluish-white main in color and was very easily comparable to the Star known by humans as Vega.

The nearest planet to Inari, designated Hantai (Japanese for opposite) was much like the Sol system’s Mercury being of small size and barren of any form of atmosphere. Unlike mercury and similar to Earth’s Moon its orbit was tidally locked to Inari resulting in an intensely hot bright side and a fully exposed to the cold vacuum of space dark side hence the name being Japanese for opposite as it was composed of two opposite halves. There were four Vulpinian bases on this world, two staffed with organics on the dark side and near the horizon line. One near dead center of the dark side that functioned more like a proper colony and the final fully automated on the intensely hot bright side serving as a solar observation constantly taking readings of Inari. The primary function of the four base colony was as a monitoring site gathering data on their sun’s internal workings.

The second planet in the system was Inari Prime, the home-world of the Vulpinians and was very much like Earth in size. Compared to earth, the planet had a larger area of temperate forest and cities tended to grow around the forests rather than cutting the forests down for the cities. As such, the planet was sort of a melding of natural and technological with cities with spaceports bordering on nearly every biome possible. Its mass and size was about 1.3 times that of Earth. A full rotation of it’s axis was approximately 29 hours and a full rotation around Inari was roughly 450 Vulpinian days. As a close approximation, One Vulpinian Year was equal to 550 Earth days. As a people, the Vulpinians didn't view this single planet as their home but the entirety of the Rolor Nebula as their home and territory. Though they still saw the Inari system and Inari Prime specifically as their origin regardless of where they were born. As a planet it had similar biomes to earth but contained only two large super continents. There were many fault areas that were still very volcanically active and earthquake prone and there were no major cities in these areas but instead less permanent types of structures were built there. Roughly 80 percent of the planet was covered in water and of the water roughly 85 percent was seawater. Said seawater was slightly less salt saturated than that of Earth, resulting in having to use a slightly less salty saline solution for medical uses with Vulpinians than with humans. There was an abundance of flora and fauna on Inari prime and it was considered to be a very botanically and zoologically diverse world.

Inari Prime was orbited by a unique Dual moon system. The primary moon was designated Kitsune a name in Japanese lore for the fox spirit. And the smaller one, designated Bi, meaning tail. This also created a paired name of Kitsune-Bi which in Japanese could mean Fox Fire, a kind of magical fire Kitsune thought to possess the ability to conjure fire. Since moons are bright and glow in the night sky this name also fit. The reason it was called a unique dual moon system was that the first moon was a standard Luna type moon that was tidally locked with Inari prime the moon was roughly a third the size of the earth and orbited further from Inari Prime than Luna orbited earth, resulting in a very similar tidal effect. The Other moon, Bi, was not really a moon but a comet that was trapped in the gravity of Kitsune. The result was occasionally Inari’s light caught the tail of said comet just right so that it appeared as if there was a tail growing out of Kitsune, hence its designation as Kitsune’s Tail or Bi. Both moons were heavily colonized

The third planet of the Inari system was Chikyuu and was roughly of equal size to earth and had a primitive atmosphere. The reasoning of the name was that post terraforming it could almost be looked at as a near twin for Planet earth in the Sol system. As a result, the name that the Vulpinians chose for it was the Japanese name for the planet Earth which roughly translated into sphere of soil. Chikyuu was terraformed into what could be considered an ideal colony world. It had five small “moons” though a better term for them was trapped asteroids. All of these “moons" had at least one colony on them some with multiple colonial bases

The fourth “planet” was the brown dwarf star named Yoko meaning Demon Fox. Coincidentally, it had nine moons of small terrestrial planet size all which were terraformed into major colonial centers. This led to these planet-like moons to be called collectively the Kyuubi no Yoko, the Nine Tails of the Demon Fox. As such, each moon was named for a Japanese number 1-9 with the suffix Bi attached to it. With the larger moon meaning the higher number. All of these moons were within a small habitable zone from the pseudo star’s heat output. In addition to those nine moons there were several smaller orbiting satellites that were the size of large (small moon sized) asteroids. All nine of the major moons have been colonized and, in turn, those moons colonized nearby small moon-sized asteroids. Regarding the appearance from Inari prime of Yoko, it was thought that it was a planet for a long time but after observation techniques got better it was discovered it was actually a Brown dwarf proto-stellar object with a size roughly the size of 1.125 Jupiter’s and a mass roughly 80 times that of Jupiter. It glowed in a dark reddish color even on the side facing away from Inari via its own nuclear fusion reactions.

The fifth sixth and seventh planets were named for the Imperial regalia of Japan. The fifth was named Yasakani for the “Yasakani no Magatama” a jade jewel in the shape of a magatama. It was named such due to its greenish color. The planet was a Gas planet between the sizes of Neptune and Uranus that had one planetoid sized moon, two major asteroid sized moons, and a faint dust ring structure. Like other planets within the Inari system it had small mining colonies on both smaller terrestrial bodies and multiple colonies on the biggest moon.

The sixth planet was named Yata and was named for the Yata no Kagame or “Eight Span Mirror”. The Eight Span the name referred to were the eight major moons ranging from small planet to small moon sized satellites. It was a gas giant size very similar in size to Saturn and like Saturn had a very well defined group of ring structures. The gas clouds of this planet took on a mostly pale brown hue, making it almost appear like it was caught in a perpetual dust storm.

The final Planet was named Kusanagi for the Kusanagi no Tsurugi or “Grass Cutting Sword “ The closest parallel to a sword that this planet had would be the amount of damage that could be seen via scans through its thick atmosphere of gasses. The majority of its mass was not of a planetary terrestrial mass but of a layer of solid and liquids ices surrounded by a thick fog of gasses. As opposed to sol’s Neptune and Uranus’s status as ice giants this would have been an ice dwarf by comparison though still much larger than an average terrestrial planet. It was surrounded by numerous small moons like asteroids that had not yet fully became spherical moons that formed a rather chaotic ring structure. As such, bases orbiting this planet were primarily above and below the horizon of the ring structure. It was theorized it would be a few hundred million years before this planet would have fully recovered from whatever happened to it (most likely a planet sized rogue object impacting it) and theoretically it should have formed into an ice planet surrounded by multiple moons with comet-like compositions.

Outside Kusanagi’s orbit there was a relatively large mass of debris surrounding the Inari system similar to Sol’s Kuiper belt. Continuing with the Japanese naming it was given the name of Kyodai Obi or Giant Belt in English. Like the planets many parts of were colonized and by mere number there were more individual small colonies there than all the other colonies combined. Though the total population of these colonies combined was less than even the smallest of the Kyubi colonies, Ichibi.

Even further beyond the Kyodai Obi was what the Vulpinian language once called the Vail. The vail was essentially the gasses that compose the majority of the Rolor nebula. Due to the vail, the night skies on Inari prime always consisted of at the most the visible seven “planets” and the two moons of Inari Prime. The rest of the night sky was a dark blue with a very faint light behind it, almost like there were dim lights behind a very opaque dark blue curtain. There were other similar pockets of non-nebulous space within the nebula and currently the entirety of the nebula was mapped by the Vulpinian authorities. Because the only intelligent life native to the entire nebula were the Vulpinians the entirety of the nebula was designated as their territory. The Vulpinian sovereignty was very open with allowing other peoples to colonize the space within the Rolor nebula under the ideology that if said people colonized an area, their laws only applied within the colony itself and outside the colony and in the space surrounding it Vulpinian law applied. In the case of Federation colonies, Vulpinian law waived jurisdiction to Federation authorities in most circumstances though occasionally there were jurisdictional “turfwars” over certain things.

Culture & Customs

Most notably amongst their culture was a very relaxed view on sexuality, with a tendency to be very open with public affection. Even public mating was far from uncommon. That said, there was an interesting separation between Mating and love. Particularly in their society, typically Vulpinians didn't develop strong romantic attachments unless in a mated pair relationship. Friends-with-benefits type relationships were common but romantic boyfriend/girlfriend scenarios were often frowned upon unless the pair sought to create children. The reason for this was partially because of the jealousy that could form if someone split their emotional attachment between two people (cheating as it were). By separating sexuality and mating from the romantic bond and instead forming platonic relationships with casual mates there was less risk of jealousy forming. As such, having a crush or spending the night with someone after sex or even cuddling just to be together could be viewed as somewhat perverted.

Customs regarding religion were often very slight and consisted of short prayers of rarely over five words and often took the form of philosophical mantras. These mantras usually reinforced thankfulness of prey and a reverence for the predator-prey relationship among their people and the animals they ate. Human anthropologists often compared this to the Plains Indian’s spiritual relationship with the buffalo. As such, Vulpinians were often far from wasteful of meat and even at their current technological level often still fashioned useful objects from the bones and tissues of prey animals. With technological advances this included a further focus on artistic works rather than tools from animal materials. The on-world fashion of Vulpinians often utilized animal skins, furs, and even bones as jewelry.

Among the high art on the Vulpinian home world, the arts of Scrimshaw, Animal pelt and fur clothing, and Blood Painting were among the most highly regarded.

The blood painting art-form existed for a long time and remained relatively the same. A part of the animal’s hide was prepared and cured in order to create a painting canvas. The blood of said animal was dried out to create a red pigment that was then mixed with different natural materials such as charcoal for darker shades or powdered bone meal (preferably from the same animal) for lighter shades. While the hide was prepared, the artist picked multiple bones of the animal to form paintbrush handles and fashioned brush heads from tufts of the animal’s hair. The final process was the painting itself which the artist created while dining solely on meals made from the very animal they were painting from. It was thought that the artist tried to channel the soul of their meal into the painting, allowing the prey to speak through the art and in spirit allow the prey animal's spirit to ascend into the painting itself. The blood painting's final fate was to be passed on in full, the art piece including not just the painting but all the brushes as well. Most often the paintings resided within a family home in a small part of the home known as the shrine to the prey which was often located near the kitchen or dining room. Traditionally a food prepper would offer a short prayer to the shrine (essentially to the spirit of the prey animal within the painting) thanking the collective spirit of prey for the life it gave to feed the family. Similar prayers were offered by the family before and after meals and bared a similarity to the idea in the Christian religion of saying grace before a meal. Often, single person households had a shrine of something small, such as a rabbit-like forest rodent. Families and smaller restaurants had something like the size of a small Terran swine. Large restaurants and large well-to-do families had one made from something larger, like a deer-sized creature. Five star establishments, military dining halls, and the like often had something made from a larger animal. Often the size of the art piece was a symbol of the mastery of the artist. Collectors would sometimes collect a full sequence from small to large as a representation of the artist’s journey from apprentice to master.

Despite the amount of focus their art had on the use of animal material, the majority of day-to-day clothing and military uniforms were made from synthetic fibers and there were laws strictly forbidding the waste of prey animal materials and forbidding artists from taking too much prey in order to craft more art. As a general rule, artists that had a lot of demand would donate excess food to charity kitchens and, respectively, restaurants donated non-food materials to youngsters wishing to practice art and become an apprentice. It was an extreme faux pas among their own kind to waste anything related to a creature that was once alive.

These cultural faux pas did not apply to visitors from other worlds and as such there were people who often made sure that materials that would otherwise be wasted were dealt with in a way they were recycled.

Regarding Social status, one of the most important facets of one's place in the world was one's age. A phrase among Vulpinians was, “with age comes privilege but with hard work, privilege can be earned faster.” This referred to the somewhat caste-like system that defined one’s place. Vulpinians had a tradition-based caste system based on stages of life. As a person aged, they went up in the system. Adult females were encouraged but not forced to become the care givers and heads of households though it was only tradition, not a strict rule. Males often chose an occupation to provide for a female and her family. The Matriarch stage was often met with advancement to the higher echelons of their given careers. Matriarchs went from the stage of raising a family and being head of a household to political roles, becoming politicians and policy makers in government positions. Elders were revered and allowed to retire to share their knowledge with those who sought them. To be an elder was an honor and to have an elder share their knowledge with you was a privilege.

As the saying above mentioned “but with hard work privilege can be earned faster.” referred to the fact that a Vulpinian could advance in the caste system by hard work and success as well. To see a younger than usual person at a higher caste in society than their age would suggest this person was unusually highly skilled in their particular field.

History

Unlike most species the Vulpinian history was extremely young and went nearly all the way back to their unnatural evolution. It was a relatively well-known fact that the fossil records showed their evolution from quadrupedal animal to sentient biped was a sudden change lending credence to the belief that there was some god or other form of meddler who forced the evolutionary change through tampering. The general belief was this was accomplished through some matriarchal god-like-being’s powers. Other theories that were accepted as possible were that some alien life form tampered with their genetic code for some reason. The fact remained that shortly after their shift from animal to what they eventually became, they discovered their unique shifting ability and also began to develop a written and verbal language as well as began recording their history. As such, the span of their race was less than 7000 years, making their species actually younger as a species than the entire span of recorded human history. Unlike humans they could trace their society to an exact location and could chart its spread over the planet. Over time there were various nations that came and went but for the most part they kept a single culture and language.

The most culture defining and dividing event for the Vulpinian race occurred approximately 1000 Vulpinian years before Federation Contact (BFC) (approx. 1500 Earth years) with an event known as The First Schism. At this point in time the Vulpinian people’s technological level was approximately that of Rome at the height of its power. It is not known for certain what occurred but what was believed was that there was a ruling family who had twin male heirs. This was very unusual as typically inheritances and ruling at the time went only to female heirs. Despite this fact, the twins were loved by the people and it was still unknown who among the pair would be crowned the inheritor of the royal titles, the other as the herald of the throne. Shortly after the father died, a daughter was born, supposedly from the father of the twins. Tragedy again struck with the birth of the lone female heir though as the Matriarch of the Vulpinian people her mother died shortly after childbirth. The people were immediately divided among those who wanted to follow tradition and make the newborn daughter the new Matriarch and those who wanted the twins to retain the birthright because of how universally loved they were. Secondly, there was a specter of doubt that the daughter was the previous matriarch's at all and may have been a child of her sister or another relative who wanted to put their child as the heir. Nevertheless the people were divided among traditionalists, those who said it was tradition to keep the female as the heir regardless if she truly was the matriarch’s daughter, and reformists, who said that even if the daughter was truly the matriarch’s the twins earned the throne. Needless to say, the argument was heated and armies began to spring up on three different sides. Two armies ready to fight for each of the twins and another willing to fight for their infant Matriarch. One of the brothers pleaded with the people to lay down their arms and not fight their new matriarch. The other swore vengeance against his so-called sister, wanting her head, believing she was not his mother’s child and swearing that their mother showed no signs of pregnancy at all to only somehow gave birth and die in the childbirth. The two factions fought bitterly for years, the brother swearing peace asking his faction to fight neither but to protect his family as he tended to the upbringing of his young sister.

When the sister reached her ascension to adulthood, her peaceful brother presided over the ceremony and in secret, hoping to broker peace, invited his brother. Upon the Matriarch’s coronation, the peaceful brother asked the queen to welcome back her brother and unite the people, pleading that by making her enemy brother the herald of the throne she may yet have a peaceful rule. Instead of seeing this as an attempt to help her solidify her power she saw it as a threat and immediately had her guards capture both brothers, executing her enemy one and exiling the ally she now saw as a traitor.

At first, the New matriarch was able to rule with solid support believing she had ended the rebellion. But soon whispers started to spread that she had not exiled either brother and had had both of them murdered. Soon she had another war on her hands which, after hundreds of years, ended only when she died and her daughter, willing to do anything to end the war began making slight policy changes allowing males to have a certain degree more equality though not enough to make much of a difference in how policy was ran. The people still functioned under a Matriarchal monarchy but at least the war had ended. Unfortunately for future descendants, old grudges didn't die so easily.

At a point in time approximately 600 Earth years BFC, the old grudges resurfaced in a series of smaller “schism wars” over the passing years. They culminated in event they called The Great Schism or The Great Exodus. Though society had remained relatively unchanged technology had changed a lot and their society was at a level similar to late 20th century Earth. They had learned to split the atom and had discovered a near inexhaustible energy source leading to a new era of exploration. The Vulpinians began to explore their home solar system in earnest. Seeing their chance to finally have the reformation they had craved, the whispers of reformation became shouts not to wage war. Rather, they became shouts to colonize the sky. Much like the colonists that first came to the new world on earth to find freedom of religion for their own sects the “Faction of the Twin Suns” named for both the twins of the old schism and for the sun and the night sun, the brown dwarf they wished to find new life among. Creating the designs for colony ships and swearing an oath to never infringe on the rights of the home-bound traditionalists, they made their exodus and soon founded their colonies among the various bodies of their solar system. It was less than a century later that the Traditionalist home world and the Reformist Colonies opened trade relations. Cargo ships and defensive fleets were created in earnest between the two peoples, finally bridging the gap that had existed for so long. In separation from each other, the two sides finally found a peaceful coexistence, though that shared existence could only be maintained for so long before differences began to divide them again.

It was unclear who made the first demands. Some said the Mother World of the traditionalists answered to the Faction of the Twin Suns and demanded rights to mine in places claimed as Twin suns territory first. Some said the Twin suns demanded a reformist party within the senate of the home world first. And there were a hundred other theories about what action initiated the first attacks. What mattered was both sides began to attack. The home world tried to take territory off world and the colonies tried to become entrenched on the home world. Terrorist factions rose and fell as radicals rose as the most popular leaders on both sides. Soon there was a full scale war in the sky. Among a people who had been living an average life span of hundreds of years, the average life span thanks to war soon became barely making it to adulthood long enough to kill a few on the other side. Families that once had five generations in a home now barely knew their fathers and mothers before leaving the children orphans to be raised in an environment where they were forged into soldiers in a war none of them knew much about.

Seeing no end to the countless lives lost, the Matriarchy unleashed the most powerful weapon on the colonial stronghold on the home world. It was a weaponization of one of their fission generators and resulted in massive devastation. (Essentially the weapon was similar to a late Cold war ICBM style fission based atomic bomb.) Knowing that neither people could continue to survive in such a war, the present matriarch offered a compromise. Instead of forcing the group of reformists into surrender as had been done countless times before only to allow them to rise back up even hungrier, she instead chose to propose a change in the nature of war among both sides. There would still be war, but war would be waged differently. In her proposal, war would become more civilized and both sides would learn more about each other rather than mindlessly trying to kill and conquer.

The compromise was a success. The war continued to be waged for centuries but through this civil war, this stalemate between the Twin Suns and the Mother World factions, both sides began to see each other’s points of view. The militaries became less polarized as did the civilian populations. Slowly, reformist parties began to appear in the Mother parliament and Traditionalist corporations began to be allowed to mine in Twin Suns territories. Eventually, further deals were reached making the rules of war, piece by piece, resemble a form of live fire war games. By 45 earth years they had almost fully eliminated all inequalities between males and females and the war, as it were, had become little more than a few skirmishes over small territories and the occasional policing of the more radical sub factions of each group who both sides governments declared as terrorists rather than as military organizations. More often than not the twin suns terrorists were fought by twin suns faction military more so than by Mother World military and the same went for the mother world terrorist groups. While many born under the Twin Suns became exchange students on the Home world and vice versa. Slowly both sides began to resemble each other more and more. At least they were until an event that would change life in the system forever occurred in their year 18 BFC.

In the year 2329 the Twin Suns faction made first contact with an alien race. The aliens claimed to have been observing the conflict for centuries (really for only months) and said they had two things the Twin suns would value more than anything. They claimed to have archaeological evidence proving the Matriarch from the first schism had assassinated both brothers and that she had not been of their bloodline at all. In addition, they offered technology that could reshape the war in the twin suns' favor and allow them to take the home world and rightfully restore the banner of the twins to the rightful place on the throne.

Meanwhile, now knowing of both sides in the war, the aliens established secret contact with the Mother World faction offering a similar piece of archaeological evidence. The evidence offered was proof that the matriarch was indeed the daughter of the ruling mother and that not only had she exiled and not murdered the peaceful brother but there was also proof that there had been a plot to place his brother as the Herald of the throne then murder both his sister and brother. Of course, they also offered weapons as well. With this evidence, both sides now had the flames of war rekindled and the Vulpinian people plunged into a more violent conflict than ever before. The rules of war dissolved POWs; instead of being welcomed to the other side with full previous ranks, they were demoted to the lowest and forced into cannon fodder to throw at their old allies. The war games devolved into a bloody war again with the mysterious alien benefactors playing both sides against each other for the sole motivation they required: profit.

It was not long before more of the large-eared aliens arrived. The Ferengi, as the Vulpinians later learned they were called, existed to fill any trading niche the other side could imagine. Some sympathized with one side, others claimed wanting to aid the other, some claimed to be mere purveyors of medicine to either side. All of them claimed their own reasons and all of them said they were a race of mere merchants offering aide to the side they personally felt deserved help. Nearly all of them, in reality, were under the contract of a single corporation that had grown rich over the years from the weapons trade to both sides of this war. In the end, though, there was a single Ferengi selling mineral commodities for Latinum while selling both sides false information and weapons that were worth virtually nothing anywhere else. That is not to say they weren’t effective given the war-games methods of war that had been fought there for a century.

In the year 2357, the USS Assurance, (an Ambassador class vessel assigned to a routine patrol and mapping assignment near the “upper” boundaries of the Cardassian Union) noticed a series of crafts heading into and out of the Rolor Nebula and towards the sector of space where the USS Stargazer had been lost two years prior.

Key Logs Pertaining to Vulpinian First Contact

USS Assurance Ambasador class NCC-26316

[*]Captain’s log Stardate 34434.3, while exploring the area of space around the Badlands, Tactical reported a convoy of small lightly armed craft heading towards the location where the USS Stargazer was lost.

Captain’s log Stardate 34434.4, Keeping a distance using the Badlands region as a buffer, we observed another convoy of ships heading into the nebula and shortly thereafter another convoy leaving it. Scans of the Rolor nebula indicated no significant presence of materials within aside from the presence of the rare material Sirillium which was known to be used by the Andorians and Tellarites in warheads.

Regarding the convoy, it appeared the same group we saw enter was the same group we saw leave and they did not stay long within the nebula. Assessment based on scans of the ships was they were likely some form of shipping vessels due to the proximity to the Cardassian Union, our tactical officer theorized that the contents of the nebula were a Cardassian forward base in our war against them. The vessels in question appeared to be lightly armed and armored and given their heading they might have been affiliated with the Ferengi race whom it was theorized had a home world near these sectors. And whom we had little to no official contact with. Advising this could've been a first contact Scenario.

Captain’s log Stardate 34434.5, We attempted contact with the convoy and were ignored. Upon contact, the vessels increased speed and did not returned. A single week passed since the last “shipment” was made. We sent a probe within the Rolor nebula and awaited transmission of its data.

Captain’s log Stardate 34434.6, It was a warzone down there. Vessels of similar make to each other were observed in close combat. Ships appeared to be similar in nature to the aircraft carriers of the United States Navy during the Third world war. Each ship appeared to carry a compliment of fighter craft capable of atmospheric and Interstellar flight. There was no indication of Faster than Light capabilities but stranger were the scans on some of the weapons witnessed. They were Federation in nature. Old, but still Federation in origin. We were advised to make contact. Whoever these people were, they were in the middle of a war and killing each other off.

Captain’s log Stardate 34434.7, I received orders to leave the sector. Some bullshit about the prime directive and non-interference. What about whoever it was that armed these people to the teeth? Who protected these people of the Rolor nebula from their interference? For all we knew this war was their fault. Damn the prime directive. The Federation was already involved. These people were killing each other with OUR weapons.

Captain’s log Stardate 34437.5, We made First Contact. The race had limited access to translators, but enough that we were able to at least reach certain understandings. Their technological level was astounding for a pre-warp civilization. Nearly every habitable moon and planet was inhabited and where it wasn't habitable they erected massive structures, creating forest cities as a means to create a new homes everywhere. It appeared there were two factions fighting over some claim to a single throne. So far our only official contact was with a captain of a colony-based carrier and all communication occurred via written communication. It appeared their translation means were quite primitive by our standards.

They agreed to allow one of the home world’s vessels to enter their territory they controlled in order to make contact with us. With our ships capabilities we were able assure the carrier of the other faction would not be attacked.

Captain’s log Stardate 34456.5, upon several days of communications with both sides and communications between the faction leaders, a temporary armistice was reached. The two faction leaders agreed to meet on our ship to discuss information we shared with them regarding the shipments they were receiving up until a few weeks ago. It appeared whoever they were trading with was playing both sides and escalating a conflict that nearly ended before their arrival.

Captain’s log Stardate 34462.5, I met the Rolor Aliens for the first time today. It was uncanny how much they looked like the werewolves from the old gothic novels I used to read as a child. Hell, they could even turn into wolf like animals and into very human looking creatures. What was the word those old books called them? Skin-walkers? Nevertheless, they were a mostly peaceful people. Not that unlike humankind, even. Closer to nature but nonetheless, our species could definitely see eye to eye on certain things. Of course, I was far from prepared to see what a armistice agreement entailed between them. It was the first time I witnessed a species sign an accord with sexual intercourse but I guess differences were to be expected. What mattered was they were no longer fighting and were sharing with us what very limited information they had on the shipments they had been receiving.

From what they told us, they had as little of an idea about the race of the species as we did. All the agreements had been made via written data communications. What we discovered was they had access to old ship graveyards, as the weaponry they received included everything from outdated Federation phasers from the old NX class ships to generator parts from old Klingon birds of prey and even a few Romulan ship components we had never seen before. Unfortunately, it seemed the root of the conflict still existed as these arms traders also created falsified documents and genetic evidence that gave both sides ample reason to escalate their violence. It would take years to repair the damage between the two people with their shared race but if what we witnessed was any indication, they were more than capable of forgiveness.

On a lighter note, these people seemed to have a sense of humor. They had already created their own oath of vengeance against their instigators. Once we left, as they requested us to leave, they would attempt to re contact their arms dealers. With any luck they would find out much more than we did. Strangely for a group that was just in a bloody civil war, their oath of vengeance was not one of violence. These merchants seemed to be just in it for commerce, whoever they were. They swore that victory would be achieved by beating them at their own game. This had the potential to become interesting.

End Logs

Shortly after first contact with the Federation, the Vulpinian people did indeed make contact with their instigators again. They continued their infiltration game for months at first, then years. They kept the Federation informed very little on how it progressed. In their own words. “We live long lives. We can be patient in our game.”

Within a few years, the Federation had a colony within their star system and the race had created words in the Federation language to call themselves and begun joint officer programs with the Federation. Their first joint venture was the construction of a warp capable vessel. Given their technological level, this proved to not be too difficult and soon two heroes from the sides of the war were selected for the pilot and co-pilot of the mission. The pilot was a matriarch-age former captain of the flagship of the mother world fleet. Among her people she was known as one of the fiercest and strongest of her faction and a strong proponent of the traditionalist values. In the copilot seat was her near polar opposite. A rather young, by Vulpinian standards, for his rank Male who had served primarily as an instructor in pilot training. Based on his record in the cockpit, had he remained in the war proper he would have likely had more kills to his name than any pilot in Vulpinian history. Add to that he was a radical, if that could be said, for being a strictly heterosexual male who bucked the system of a matriarchal society of pansexuals. If there was an example of the kind of person the traditionalists feared, one the reformists would allow to be called normal, it was this brash male pilot who had vocally stated he would be willing to be fully stripped of his rank to join the Federation academy if it meant being the first of his kind to “cut the curtain”. Meaning to expose his people to the universe outside the nebula they were within.

The opposing beings were a perfect symbol of the two sides working together. Both of them became household names and became to the Vulpinian people what the names Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were to Americans of the 20th century. Had the male chose to remain at home, he surely would have been able to be one of the youngest Vulpinians to enter the Patriarch caste having considered a post war life as a reformist politician wanting to continue the debate among his people to petition for membership within the Federation. The female, on the other hand, followed an almost opposite path. She went straight back into the military and rose to the point of being Commander of the Vulpinian Defense Force Fleet (Essentially Secretary of the Navy within the Joint Chiefs of Staff.) It was far from long before she was elected the first High Matriarch, an office of the new reformed government that existed as the head of the executive branch and Commander in Chief of all Vulpinian Military Forces (President of the US would be a good comparison but for the whole race).

Shortly after this point in time, the Vulpinian people elect begin petitioning the Federation to designate the stellar bodies within their solar system based on the Shinto religious terms. Their sun and solar system were named on Federation charts as the Inari system and their home planet Inari Prime. They declared the name of their new government the United Vulpinian Federated States and the Planet Inari Prime signed a treaty making themselves allies of the Federation and within years began their candidacy for membership into the Federation.

During this process, the newly re-designated Vulpinian Defense Force (VDF) entered into a joint project with the Federation to create a warp capable Vulpinian style space-fighter carrier. The vessel was christened the VDF-Kitsune registration Number VX:01 in 2263 and was immediately made the Flagship of the VDF. Its first mission was a long distance shakedown voyage to Earth

Given their proximity to the Cardassian Union in the years following the end of the Cardassian Federation war, the Space around the Rolor nebula became a forward base of operations for the Federation for monitoring the escalating tensions within the DMZ and lasted as a primary point of observance on the political unrest until the Federation takeover of Terok-Nor which was rechristened as Deep Space 9.

During the time they were being considered as a protectorate within the Federation the Vulpinian people decided to begin establishing colonies outside the nebula. A bit of the area outside the nebula as well as the entire nebula was declared as Vulpinian Sovereign Territory. It was not long before the Vulpinian Defense Force was a known power within the area and, due to their status as only a protectorate of the Federation rather than a member, their independence allowed for a certain sovereignty that allowed them to act differently than the Federation in regards to the Marquis resistance that was beginning to grow within the Cardassian Federation DMZ.

As a result of their sovereignty and certain political liberties, the Marquis were able to use the nebula within Vulpinian space to make certain illegal arms deals and, as a result, this caused tensions between themselves and the Cardassian Union. Of course, in these times they had made their own non Federation allies, having become uneasy trade partners with the Ferengi after an agreement was made that liquidated the assets of the company who had caused the worst parts of their war. Due to the fact that their nebula had massive quantities of the weapons making material sirillium, the Ferengi and other neighboring peoples couldn’t help but want to enter into a trade relationship with the fledgling Vulpinian Sovereignty. As a result, the Federation couldn’t grant the Vulpinians much more than being a protectorate at that time, but at the same time allowed for a loophole for certain sympathizers to find ways to aid the Marquis cause.

Once the dominion officially made their move and the Cardassian declared full war on the Federation, the Vulpinian defense force went on high alert. Given its proximity to high priority targets, the Federation couldn’t afford their recent allies to have their territory captured by dominion forces. Fortunately, the VDF was quite skilled at repelling attacks within their own territory.

Compared to most battles in the Dominion War there were very few Federation or VDF losses within the Rolor Nebula. These victories, combined with the use of similar smaller-size ships against Cardassian and Dominion forces elsewhere, were part of the reason for the formation of the Tactical CONN division.

Shortly after the end of the Dominion War, due to their exemplary service allied with the Federation during the Dominion War, the Vulpinians were granted full member status within the Federation and were allowed to maintain the Rolor nebula as their own sovereign territory as well while the Federation had jurisdiction on things outside the nebula. Eventually, the Vulpinian sovereignty became a self-governing faction with member status within the Federation that on local matters maintained their own jurisdiction within the Rolor nebula deferring to Federation law and Starfleet intervention when appropriate. AS such, they maintained their own military, designated the Vulpinian defense force or VDF.

Government & Military

The government of the Vulpinian people existed as a separate entity from The Federation but was also part of the Federation. A similar relationship between the Federation and the Vulpinian Sovereignty would be the relationship between the United States and Puerto Rico. Their government, called the Vulpinian sovereignty, was made up of four branches: Judicial, Martial, Executive, and Legislature.

The government was divided into several levels of jurisdiction. The levels were Local, Regional, National, and Sovereign. Sovereign was the level of jurisdiction that referred to the entirety of the Vulpinian people’s government as a whole and its jurisdiction was the Entirety of the Rolor nebula and Locations of Vulpinian embassies on other worlds. When a Vulpinian vessel was outside the nebula, it was considered to be a mobile nation state of the Vulpinian Sovereignty.

National level of jurisdiction was the largest subdivision within the sovereignty. There were six nations making up the Vulpinian sovereignty and each had its own customs and individual laws. The six nations consisted of first the two major landmasses of Inari Prime, the supercontinents of Canus and Vulpis named for the Latin words for Canine and Fox. Other nations were the inner colonies which formed the original Twin Suns Faction, The Yoko Colonies (the colonies located on and around the satellites of the Brown Dwarf “Yoko” which was Japanese for Demon Fox), the outer colonies which were colonies within the Inari system but neither orbited around Yoko or belonged to the group of colonies in the initial founding of the twin suns. Finally, the sixth nation was a loose confederation of city states made up of colonies outside of the Inari system.

Regional would be comparable to a U.S State government and was a subdivision of the National division. Regional laws were the most common and most major offenses were tried via a regional court. It was rare that crimes were tried at a level above regional though extreme cases occurred. Few major felonies were tried on a level lower than regional. Finally, Local referred to the smallest unit of jurisdiction, typically referring to a particular city or colonial structure. Many colonies were far flung enough that they were recognized as city states and existed at both the Regional and Local level simultaneously.

Regarding the branches of Vulpinian government, the judicial branch was not that different than that of the United States during the 20th century. On the local level, courts dealt with civil crimes, misdemeanors, and minor felonies. The next level up in court was the Regional courts which tried most violent offenses and major felonies as well as most capital crimes. For the most part, national level courts were appeals courts operating much like State supreme courts did within the United States. Similarly, the sovereign court operated much like the US Supreme Court and had the power to interpret whether legislation was constitutional. Most of the time, if the Federation had an issue with a policy regarding Vulpinian law, the conflict was resolved through conference via the Chief Justice of the Sovereign Court appearing before the Federation Council so the issue could be arbitrated jointly.

The Martial branch was essentially the governmental entity of the military of the Vulpinian people. This consisted on the local level as a police force, Regional level as militia for military purposes and regional police forces for large jurisdictional needs. On the National level existed a National Guard for military and it consisted of national level police and investigative agencies

On the Sovereign level were the various investigative and intelligence bureaus and militarily consisted of the Vulpinian Defense Force which consisted of multiple separate branches of military. The VDF was divided based on purpose and where the people served. The Inarian Fleet primarily consisted of carrier type vessels. Though it was supplemented by Cruisers, Destroyers, Frigates, and Dreadnaughts. For the most part, the Inarian Fleet’s vessels resembled marine vessels in form and function. As such, when in space, the ships typically launched using the internal launch bays, while in atmosphere they functioned as naval vessels launching from a top deck while floating on water.

The Ground forces were a regular army that was divided into two groups that were members of the same branch. A marine soldier force with similar nature to a Marines contingent often acted as security aboard Inarian fleet vessels. The other Ground forces group was a more traditional Regular army supplemented with large scale artillery.

The final branch was similar in nature to an Air Force and consisted of the Space fighter pilot contingent of the VDF. As could be noticed, all three forces tended to have some of each other’s forces in some way tied with the other. Due to the prevalence of both space and atmospheric combat with air and space battle, Fighter craft hadn't lost their resemblance to aircraft with designs that were built to be agile within an atmosphere equally to their agility in vacuum.

As a general rule, the army maintained land-based with airfields that served as launch-based for land-based pilot operations. Similarly, the Fleet had both Pilots and ground forces serving onboard ships. Often, ships existed with three separate chains of command with squadron leaders not directly reporting to a ship’s captain but to a fleet Wing Commander. And Security forces onboard the ship, rather than reporting to a captain reported to an Expeditionary group General.

At the top of the military chain of command was a five-person executive committee. This committee was similar to the Joint Chiefs of Staff in the U.S. Military and consisted of the highest ranking members or secretaries of the branch in question. The fourth member of the committee was the elected grand matriarch of the Vulpinian people (head of the executive branch) who acted as the civilian voice in military matters. At the head of the committee was the Commander in Chief of the Vulpinian Defense Force who acted as the leader of all military operations and was the head of the Martial branch of Government.

The third branch was the executive branch which on the local level consisted of a mayor, on regional levels was represented by a governor and their cabinets, on national level represented by Presidents, and on the sovereign level was the Grand Matriarch of Vulpinian society.

Mayors were elected by a city council which functioned as a legislative body on the local level. This legislative body was elected by the citizens of said locality. The candidates for a mayoral election were from the pool of current council members. On the next rung up, the pool of mayors elected a governor from their group who then selected their cabinet from the pool of governors for a nation the governor's elected a president. Out of the entire pool of Governors, one was elected by the college of governors to be the grand matriarch. Usually this was one of the current standing presidents though sometimes a relative unknown could be elected to the position. The Leaders of the nation’s functioned as the cabinet of the Grand matriarch who less made the decisions and more was a mouthpiece for the will of the cabinet of presidents as a whole. It was also important to note that even though the title was Grand Matriarch, the leader could and in many instances was a male. Elections to the mayoral positions were held every year. The other offices, rather than being re-elected could be voted out of office by popular vote by the people on whatever level they represented. Vote for reelection referendum by the people was held every two years for governors for presidents. When a grand matriarch was appointed it was a lifetime (or until they and or the council feels it’s time for them to step down) appointment. Rarely were presidents elected out of the non-elder population and as such it was even rarer for a non-Elder to receive the Grand Matriarch Title. As a result, rarely did a grand matriarch have the title for more than 25 years.

(A good comparison to the election of the presidents and grand matriarchs from the college of Governors would be the Papal conclave of the Roman Catholic Church with presidents being the Papabili and therefore not always elected to the position but definitely the names on the likely short list.)

The legislature on a local level was the aforementioned city council, though on local levels most laws were voted on by the citizenry of said locality after proposal and authorization by city council. On the regional national, and sovereign levels legislative bodies were elected very similarly to the way it occurred within the United States. For the most part there were three political parties. The traditionalists and the reformists were the two wings of the spectrum, with traditionalists being the traditionally conservative party of the two. Notably there was a third party that’s primary identity was of a mentality for compromise and arbitration typically developing a reputation of being good at finding compromises between the two opposing viewpoints.

As for the structure of the legislature it was a three house system traditionally consisting of members of the three different age castes. Adult, Matriarch, and Elder. The Largest house was the Common Senate and had reelections every year. This group primarily made edits to bills. While the house of matriarchs and house of elders authored and approved them respectively. And held elections every three and six years respectively. Once it passed all three houses it went to the head of the executive branch and they and their cabinets decided whether to sign it into law or not.

Technology

Vulpinians, prior to encountering other races, had already developed space travel within their solar system and had established colonies on both of their moons and multiple space stations within planetary orbit. As such, they were still a pre-warp civilization but had very sophisticated impulse engine technology. It was theorized that if they had knowledge that there were stars beyond the veil of the nebula they may have wanted to travel faster but with a thought that nothing was beyond the furthest planet but a wall of space, the only place to explore was what they could see. As such, their technology was towards colonization of their own system and the military might necessary to protect those assets. Their primary military might was in the form of their Starfighter Carriers and their pre Federation contact space fighters.

Mythology

In their short history as a species there was a single religion that evolved over time. At its core was the belief that a lone creator guided the earliest Vulpinians to take on a bipedal form. They called this deity “The Great Matriarch.” Eventually, Vulpinian beliefs varied on whether this was a Goddess as the mythology suggests, or some form of advanced alien who performed genetic experimentation on their ancestor species.

Aside from the belief in the great matriarch there was a general belief that all life had some form of spirit rather as simple as a microbe or a blade of grass or as complex as a sentient being. This belief pervaded a train of thought that guided their mentality towards city expansion building around woodlands rather than blindly tearing down forests to expand. Unlike many civilized creatures, the Vulpinians embraced their ecosystem taking constant care not to disrupt it so as to keep the food chain and ecosystem stable.

Another part of their religious beliefs was an inherent reliance on their prey and, as such, there were multiple holidays revolving around the reverence of different staple animals of their diet. In addition rather than prayers to a given deity, many Vulpinians practiced a form of prayer during the various processes of processing, butchering, and meal preparation.

A more recent belief was that said matriarch was possibly some alien similar in nature to the denizens of the Q continuum or one of similar nature to the Apollo entity that Captain James T. Kirk reported encountering. Recently, Miles Renard noted that this was most likely the true origin of his species due to the fact that the recently encountered Ishtar entity referred to herself as this goddess to him. Due to the circumstances, it was highly probable that the Ishtar entity that the Theurgy encountered was indeed the being known as the great matriarch to the Vulpinians and their origin as a species was not through natural evolution but rather some deity’s influence.

Special Notes

Vulpinian Adulthood

Vulpinian Adulthood was an interesting concept due to their unique physiology, particularly the way they became "adults". The first event on the path to adulthood was the first signs of puberty which began at roughly 25 Human years of age. At that point, the Vulpinian gradually developed into an adult, much like Human adolescence and young adulthood. Unlike many other species, the hormones that affected sexual activity did not begin awakening until the Vulpinian Body developed into a fully grown adult. (Human equivalent 18-24 years old average 21) This point of sexual awakening was often a very spiritual time in a Vulpinian's life where they underwent a second rite of passage into adulthood truly signifying the Vulpinian as a full adult of his race rather than the status as a "Young adult". In terms of rites, privileges, etc. there was no difference between the two stages of life.

An important thing to note was Vulpinians who were not yet "Fully Adult" did not have any sexual hormones activated and therefore lacked any form of sexual urges or impulses. Often the first time they had any form of sexual urge was at some point early in the sexual awakening (which in even the earliest of bloomers was the equivalent of an 18 year old human.)

Due to the fact that Vulpinians did not experience sexual urges until well into young adulthood they learned about sexuality from a biological and cultural standpoint in basic education courses taught when they were still children. By the time they were adults, knowledge of sexuality in terms of what it was and cultural significance was just another part of one's standard body of knowledge, no more important than any other mundane fact. A Vulpinian's sexual awakening was thus an expected part of life they knew would come, much like how Human women know well in advance what should be expected when menopause begins. Most Vulpinans expected the awakening and looked forward to it but didn't have any frame of reference to understand why older adults did what they did until it occurred. Once they awoke, it began to make more and more sense.

Punishment of rape and statutory rape: Sexual acts between a full-adult and a non-awakened adult or a non-adult and non-consensual sex between two adults were both equally considered rape. Rape was considered one of the greatest taboos. Punishment for the crime of rape could include the death penalty, life imprisonment, or punishments such as surgical castration or emasculation in males or surgical infibulation in females.

This was because one of the most important factors of consent with Vulpinians was the presence of pheromonal signals and those who had not sexually awakened did not produce said pheromones, so there was no distinction between statutory rape and standard rape. Someone who did not produce said pheromones was not consenting therefore all non-awakened Vulpinians were not consenting as they had yet to have ever had any form of urge to partake in such an activity.

The act of Statutory rape was almost unheard of in Vulpinian society, though due to the fact that only full adults produced pheromones and as a result there was no psychological frame of reference for any sexual attraction to someone who did not. Attraction to a non awakened individual or someone not exuding the pheromones denoting consent was viewed as not only criminal but was viewed as a psychological abnormality comparable to psychopathy. Essentially, the only thing a Vulpinian saw as similar psychologically to a rapist or a pedophile was a psychopath, a serial killer, or a mass murderer.

Vulpinian views on Canabalism

There were certain regions that treated cannibalism as a natural way of disposing of the body of the recently deceased (If the cause of death was such that no infectious diseases were present in the body). This was a very uncommon practice among modern Vulpinians, but the cultural concept did exist. As such, there was a high tolerance for this facet of culture. That said, cannibalism in the act of murder was viewed as a taboo act as it was an act of murder but also was extremely insulting to a distinct cultural rite. It was seen somewhat as how we would view murder and desecrating the corpse as well.

When it came to violence in a war setting, biting an enemy and tearing away flesh and eating what was bitten off was not seen as cannibalism. And instead was just part of the inherent violence of deadly combat. This was one of the aspects of Vulpinian war that the Federation did not quite came to terms with; however as evidenced in the Dominion War there was a certain brutal effectiveness in ground forces that were capable of serving both as intelligent and tactically sound soldiers and as ultra-intelligent attack dogs.